Daily Archives: 20 Oct 2006

An end to the furnace woes

When last I wrote of the furnace woes, a woman at the warranty company (WC) had called me and told me she’d be contacting their appointed contractor to get my furnace replaced.

She called back not too much later, having spoken with the contractor, and told me that instead of issuing me a check for $740 plus some amount for code violations, the WC would be supplying the furnace, paying the contractor their portion directly, and I would be responsible for a remaining $550. That sounded good to me, as the total price was around $1800, and ($1800 – $740 – up to $250 for code violations) > $550. She told me that the contractor would be calling me by Monday or Tuesday to set up an appointment to do the work and that she would also be calling me to follow up and make sure everything was being handled. Thus ended day four without heat.

Tuesday came around and no one had called me yet, so I called the contractor up to make sure everything was still going to be taken care of on Thursday, like he had told me before. He said he was about to call me and ask if he could start the work that evening because he had a training class he was supposed to go to during part of the time he would have been at my house on Thursday. Anything to get this done faster, I said.

So he and his assistant (I assume) came by on Tuesday night for about and hour and a half and put the new furnace in. Since it was smaller, new ductwork still needed to be installed, but he said he would need to build it still and would be back on Thursday morning around 8. Thus ended day eight without heat.

Sure enough, Thursday morning he showed up bright and early and had everything wrapped up by about 11. He programmed our thermostat and even left us an extra filter. As I was at work, my wife handed over $900 (the $550 plus $350 for an air conditioning coil to facilitate a later installation of central AC), and we have heat in our home again. It’s quite nice.

My wife told me that just as the contractor was showing her how to work the thermostat, an employee of Questar Gas showed up to turn off our gas service for non-payment. Since we have paid all of our gas bills on time she asked him to make sure it was really us he was looking for. After further examination of his paperwork, he sheepishly admitted he had the wrong house. I’m glad I was at work so I didn’t have to hear the shouting that surely came from the duplex next door.

No one from the WC ever called me back since last Friday, and I’m in no hurry to speak with any of their people anyway, so that’s that.